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Re: Accessibility of + and -

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Dec 7, 2016 9:04AM

ASCII?
Why not Unicode?

In 2000, Unicode was adopted worldwide by most computer technologies as the default character encoding, and is in WCAG and PDF/UA. Using Unicode guarantees that your content will convert seamlessly into any other technology, from Word to HTML to PDF to MathML to EPUB to whatever. ASCII is pretty much deprecated, as well as the old Apple "special" character encoding Steve Jobs developed in the 1980s.

The beauty of Unicode is that is maps each character of the world's major languages, punctuation, dingbats, math/science symbols, and anything else you can dream up to its unique character codepoint (4 to 5 digit code number).

The key on your keyboard to the right of the Zero key is a hyphen, not a dash or minus sign. Given that, it has a great likelihood of being misinterpreted by any and all technologies, including various screen readers.

So why ask software to guess what your intent is? Minus or hyphen?
Why not instead use the real Unicode character for a minus?

Hyphen (-) = Unicode 002D
Minus (-) = Unicode 2212
En Dash (-) = Unicode 2013
Em Dash (-) = Unicode 2014

If you're writing in MS Word, it's easy to insert Unicode characters. Type the 4-digit Unicode code followed by Alt + X keys. Alt-x will cause the software to look back and swap out the numbers for the actual Unicode character.

You can find the Unicode characters through Word's insert symbol utility, Windows character utility, InDesign's Glyph panel, and online at www.Unicode.org

--Bevi Chagnon